Philips DVP3340V DVD VCR Combo

In purchasing a DVD/VCR combo, I wasn't looking for any special features, really, I just wanted a reliable name brand that would allow me to watch both DVD and VHS without too much of an ordeal.

Words cannot begin to describe how much I regret purchasing this player for a couple of very simple reasons. Right out of the box, it froze while playing brand new DVD's. really? hey, i know, let's use the DVD player cleaning disc. Oh, it won't play that? really? it's because of that ridiculous progressive scan feature?

Whoever invented Progressive Scan perhaps wanted to design another circle of hell. If you stop or turn off the player for any reason, you cannot tell the player that when you put it back in you don't want it to start up from your stopping point again. Even if you eject the dvd, power down, etc., it will STILL remember this, and only want to start from your stopping point. Finally - the menu features are totally not intuitive, which is just icing on this grouch's cake.

Ironically enough, my lower priced refurbished Daewoo plays everything, and I have yet to have any issue with it. I'm currently shopping for a replacement for this paperweight if anyone has any recommendations.

I bought this as a replacement for a VCR. I was aiming to get a fairly inexpensive unit that would record and play VHS tapes. It does both of these things just fine. I haven't even tried the DVD player. As others have noted, it doesn't have the coax antenna connection, but I don't need that connection. I'm happy with it.

Electronics sometimes confound me and I just wanted something easy to work and of good quality so I could play my new DVDs and fav old VCRs; so I read lots of reviews on Amazon before picking this little refurbished sweetie and couldn't be more pleased. The price was good, free shipping was a bonus and the seller shipped really quickly. I hate driving around town for a bargain but I love the convenience, ease, and customer reviews on Amazon.com., so I made the choice of this Philips combo and glad I did.

If you have an old tv without the red/white/yellow inputs, you will need an external rf modulator to use this combo unit. But nothing in the Phillips literature or website mentions this. Amazon sells rf modulators, and they should cost about $20. Also, if you have a Verizon FIOS cable box, you have to place the rf modulator between the cable box and the tv. I don't know about other cable boxes. I had gotten the impression from the FIOS install guy that the cable box had to be the last element before the tv. But I couldn't see the combo unit signal until I moved the modulator "upstream". It's something particular about this combo unit. I used to have a horribly messy setup with DVD player/RF modulator/VCR/cablebox/ancient TV, and it worked fine. Now I have cablebox/RF modulator(with new combo unit input)/ancient TV. All is finally good. (I keep the ancient tv instead of buying an expensive, delicate, easily scratched/stained, tippy new model because of a young child with heavy toys, sticky fingers, and magic markers.)

The delivery was very very fast, the quality of merchandise was great- only thing I didnt like was NO INVOICE was included